


not what I expected but

by adeleblaircassiedanser



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bro Code, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Drinking, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Obliviousness, Pining, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking, everyone is bi, hopefully, liberties taken with samwell since we have no information, more people will show up soon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adeleblaircassiedanser/pseuds/adeleblaircassiedanser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well… I have a fake with me, if you want brewskis. Or I think I have like… half an eighth in my glove compartment, if you wanna walk back to my car?”</p><p>“Is it not, like, completely idiotic to have that much weed in your car? What if you got pulled over?”</p><p>“If I go to jail, I won’t have to go to law school,” Shitty explains, shrugging. No one has ever accused him of being a good decision-maker. </p><p>Lardo laughs for way too long at that. “Can we do both?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now you're in my way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, starting another WIP... don't mind me...  
> Anyway, these two have taken over my life, I don't care about anything else, I made Sims of them. Help. Work title from "You're the Only One" by Maria Mena. Chapter title from Call Me Maybe, because I have made Lardo my age for reasons and that song came out when I was a freshman.  
> Please comment with suggestions or anything! Not at all sure about their voices yet.

August 2011

In the first couple of days after her parents finish moving her into Bates Hall on the South Quad and bid her chào, Larissa and her new roommate try determinedly to find things they have in common. Lexi seems nice enough, for all she is a blonde volleyball player from Sharptown, Maryland with an uncommonly large and diverse collection of nail polish. It’s wrong to judge people on first impressions, Larissa, she reminds herself. Her guidance counselor had mentioned more than once that college was a good time to work on “growing up” and being “less narrow-minded”. 

The first couple nights they make small talk, and when Lexie mentions breaking up with her lax bro boyfriend a week after prom, Larissa settles the coming out question for herself. It’s good to have that out of the way. 

“Yeah, that sucks,” she says. “My girlfriend’s at BU. I got a good scholarship here, and the arts program is good, so. It’s only an hour or so with good traffic. I applied to SCAD too, and if I would have gone I think we would have broken up too. Distance blows.”

“One hundred percent agreed,” Lexie says. “It is the literal worst. What’s her name?”

So that’s one less thing to worry about. Larissa had heard that Samwell was a pretty “progressive” campus, but reading official university recruitment literature and seeing for yourself are two different things. 

November 2011

By the time Shreya comes to visit, the weekend after Thanksgiving, life has gotten super hectic. Between her core classes (fuck calculus, seriously), trying to find time to work in the studio, and Larissa’s brand new job, she has trouble carving out two days for them to spend together.

“So let me get this straight. You can’t come pick me up from the bus stop on Friday because you have to be at a hockey game?”

“Yeah. I told you, I’m the team manager.”

“Of the men’s hockey team? When were you gonna tell me?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t happen that long ago. I knew you were gonna freak out so I was putting it off.”

“Babe, you know I love you, but I will never understand you. Can I just come in Saturday morning?”

Larissa is relieved not to be asked any further questions, such as why she is managing a hockey team, or what said management entails, because she does not have any answers herself. 

On the bright side, it turns out she doesn’t even have to take the jacked up campus shuttle to the bus stop, because one of her newfound charges insists on driving. 

“Do you really go by Shitty? Is that a voluntary thing?”

“Yeah, bro, it’s my nickname. It’s a team thing. You need one too.”

“And you have a car on campus?”

“Correction: I have access to a car, the ownership of which should remain ambiguous for plausible deniability purposes.”

“And you want to get up tomorrow at six in the morning.” Larissa eyes the Natty Light he’s nursing pointedly. “To drive me, a relative stranger, to the bus station.”

“Dude. First of all, you’re on the team now, which makes us officially bros, not strangers. Bros do stuff for each other. That’s how it works. Plus, if you’re the new manager, she’s practically our First Lady! I gotta meet her.”

“I just want to point out that I’m only the manager because you cornered me after Bio 1 last week and begged me on your knees. I only said yes because you were making a scene. I think some of the people passing by thought you were proposing.” 

To be fair, she had been looking for a job at the work study office anyway, but Shitty hadn't known that. Regardless, the reverse interview process had still been a little over the top. 

“So I’ll see you at six,” Shitty said, doing some kind of dramatic bow-thing as he turned to take his next turn at pong. Despite all expectations, he shows up on time and even makes a good impression on Shreya, who asks about him for months afterwards. 

(To be fair, she mostly says, “Are you still hanging out with that mustache guy?” but she means it in a nice way.)  
-  
Later, it will be a matter of some contention how Lardo was christened by her rightful team name. Both Shitty and a couple of different seniors will try to take credit for it. She herself will not remember the exactitudes, just the fact that she went into Hazeapalooza 2011 as Larissa Duan, and came out of it Lardo. She contends that it had something to do with her chasing shots of Georgi with Oreo filling, and using the remaining cookies to keep score. Shitty thinks it had to do with bodily lifting of some kind. The important thing is that she enters 2012 with a nickname, and is thus “A permanent and indelible part of the Samwell Men’s Hockey team forever,” Shitty eulogizes from atop a precarious tower of three kegs in the Haus’ foyer. This proclamation is met with raucous applause and calls for more shots. 

The hangover lasts for days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	2. new ways to fall apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are, another chapter... Shitty's POV this time. Chapter title from Fun! to continue the pattern of 2012 bubblegum :) Let me know what you think!

June 2012

“Hey, Shitty?”

“Hello?”

“This is Lardo.”

“Yeah, dude, I know. I have your number. Shout out to the 978,” he says. “So what’s up? You miss me?”

“Do you wanna go see a shitty- sorry- but like, a shit terrible action movie or something? How far is your house from the city?”

“I’m in Newton, so like, not far. You?”

“Concord, it’s like forty minutes on the train. Do you wanna meet at North Station at, like, one?”

Lardo is quieter than usual, but she looks glad to see him. On the twenty minute walk towards the Common, Shitty fills the silence with complaints about living with his dad and raving about how good the new Marina and the Diamonds album is. When they get to the theater, Lardo insists on seeing _Battleship_ even though _The Avengers_ is out and neither of them has seen it.

“I don’t want to see a good movie,” she explains cryptically. “Today is not a good day.”

 _Battleship_ lives up to Lardo’s hopes. It is not a good movie, although with the combined hotness of Tim Riggins and Rihanna, at least it’s not boring. When they get out of the theater Lardo finally speaks up.

“So, Shreya dumped me,” she says flatly. “She said she wanted to be with someone who could make time for her, which is fair. But that sucks, because I can’t even be that mad. I honestly wish she had cheated or something.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shitty asks carefully.

“No, I wicked don’t, if that’s okay.”

“Well… I have a fake with me, if you want brewskis. Or I think I have like… half an eighth in my glove compartment, if you wanna walk back to my car?”

“Is it not, like, completely idiotic to have that much weed in your car? What if you got pulled over?”

“If I go to jail, I won’t have to go to law school,” Shitty explains, shrugging. No one has ever accused him of being a good decision-maker.

Lardo laughs for way too long at that. “Can we do both?”

They get drinks at a market on the way back to the parking lot- Colt 45 for Lardo and a Mike’s Hard Pink Lemonade for Shitty, because it’s a free country.

They drink and hotbox the car in the mostly-abandoned parking lot- it’s a Wednesday night- and Shitty plays his burned CD version of Electra Heart, with the acoustic versions at the end. They end up napping since Shitty is way too fucked up to drive, and by the time they wake up it’s already midnight.

“Fuck me,” Lardo says, because the commuter rail isn’t running, and won’t be till morning. “My mom is going to murder me.”

“Bro, don’t worry about it. I can drive you. I want McDonald’s first, though.”

-

 

September 2012

Lardo calls when Shitty is at Nantucket with his dad’s awful family, smoking a surreptitious joint on the beach.

“Hey bro, what’s up?”

“Can I run something by you, and you tell me if I’m crazy?”

“Sure, although I must remind you that I am not myself sane, just medicated.”

“Close enough. Look, I just found out that my scholarship would cover a semester or two abroad. My advisor wants me to do this, like, experimental arts program in Kenya…”

Shitty lets the words wash over him, but he feels his body and his mind sort of separating as he tries to process the idea. No Lardo waiting at the Haus in September, no Lardo at Halloween, no Lardo painting on his skin to distract him from studying for finals- maybe no Lardo all year. Junior year without Lardo. The idea makes him feel like the world’s been tipped on its side.

“Wow, where in Kenya would you be?”

“Well, it’d be at the University of Nairobi most of the time, but with excursions to Mombasa and maybe even into Tanzania. Dude, can’t you see me on Kilimanjaro? Wrestling a leopard or something?”

“Definitely. New profile pic for sure. That’s sick, brah. Where does the crazy part come in?”

“Well, I mean, it’s a lot of time to be away from school, you know. Would the team be okay? Would you get another manager or what?”

“No, definitely not. We’d figure something out. You should definitely go, dude. If you don’t you’ll be kicking yourself in a couple years for choosing collegiate hockey over leopard fighting, come on.”

“Thanks, Shits. I still have to submit the application, and I don’t know if I’ll even get in, but.”

“Lardo, come on. Didn’t you pull a cool 3.9 as a freshman on top of keeping our sorry asses in line? You’re a shoo-in.”

It’ll be good for her, too, he knows. It’s been a hard summer, and a shock to the system like this is probably just what he needs. Shitty has a lot of flaws, but he likes to think he’s not a selfish person.

“I really appreciate it, dude. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

-

In line with all accordant clichés about distance, Shitty’s Lardo situation gets about one thousand times worse that fall. He tries to distract himself by harassing Jack and befriending the new frogs, and even putting effort towards his non-feminist theory classes, but he keeps expecting to see her, going to text her and then remembering he has to email. She promises to Skype, and they do it once or twice but it’s awkward, trying to keep a conversation going where it’s always fallen naturally into place. Shitty has always been very in touch with himself, and he acknowledges that he is having _feelings_ with a capital F. Inconvenient and stupid, but true. Regardless, Lardo doesn’t do boys. It’s just like how some people are straight, you know? Sexuality is a spectrum _. You gotta respect the spectrum,_ he says to himself, and sometimes to unwitting audiences of confused frogs or sociology classmates. Also, he rejects out of hand that Harry and Sally bullshit about women and men and friendship. He and Lardo are friends, best friends, and he respects her as a person. Male objectification of women is abjectly unforgivable, and he would never want to make her uncomfortable or ruin their perfectly enjoyable equilibrium. _Feelings_ will pass, given time- but Shitty’s friends are his family. That’s forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the ending is cheesy but lbr Shitty is definitely an enormous cheeseball. So. If y'all have any thoughts about where the story should go or how they sound or where the rest of everybody is, etc. please leave a comment! I had these two chapters written but the rest is basically just an outline, so any help is appreciated. :)


End file.
